Historic Walsh Farm, Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada, photo above — Author Jannet L. Walsh stands next to the historic Walsh farm on Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada. Self portrait, October 7, 2024. Walsh carried a notebook always to record her visits on Wolfe Island, making sure she could tell the story of finding her family roots in Canada.

Manuscript status – ‘Irish Bard’ Jannet L. Walsh, roots on Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada

Jannet L. Walsh
August 19, 2026
Murdock, Minnesota

Wolfe Island holds my family’s precious Irish and Canadian history, along with my heart, in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, not far from the United States.

I’ve been chasing Canadian family history in Ontario since 2022, about my Irish Walsh family living on the largest island in the Thousands Island Archipelago named Wolfe Island. I’ve received two grants from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council to help me uncover my Canadian and Irish Roots.

The current grant started November 26, 2024, and ends Aug. 29, 2026. The Artist Growth grant was received from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, to continue the writing project started in 2022. This grant is specifically to finish the manuscript started during the previous grant, including hiring a book editor, along with receiving marketing help. The goal of the project is to create a manuscript, with hopes of becoming my second book.

My first grant for this project was also from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, SMAC, Artist Growth Grant, 2022 – 2024. Funding for this program was provided by the McKnight Foundation. Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive. The McKnight Foundation supports working artists to create and contribute to vibrant communities.

“Jannet Walsh of Murdock was awarded $4,000 for the completion writing Wolfe Islander: Return to the people of the Land and Sea (a collection of new family history stories in Minnesota and Canada, part of the Irish Diaspora), to hire a book editor, for marketing, and presenting a finished manuscript to publishers to obtain a book publishing contract.”

From Southwest Minnesota Arts Council. December 2024 Newsletter, sent by Email.

The two grants helped bring reality to my dream of seeing and writing about where my family lived as Irish immigrants, 1842-1877, as people of the land and sea on Wolfe island near the city of Kingston, Ontario, reached only by ferry today, as well as in the past.

I’m likely the first known person in my family to return to Wolfe Island since 1877, before migrating south to De Graff, in rural Swift County, Minnesota. They were part of a mainly Irish and Catholic colony started by the late Bishop John Ireland, later named Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of Saint Paul.

Irish Catholics in Minnesota heritage – My family is one of the four thousand Catholic families Archbishop Ireland helped resettle in west central and southwest Minnesota during the years of 1875-1885. Archbishop Ireland’s goals were to alleviate the perceived problems of nativist prejudice (anti immigrant), poverty, and loss of religion faced by urban Catholics (particularly Irish) on the east coast and poor Catholics still in Ireland by relocating them to low cost farmland in western Minnesota. Today I live just three miles from De Graff, in Murdock, Minnesota, in the same house my father was born in 1924. 

My father, the late Martin J. Walsh Jr., of Murdock, Minnesota, would say when I was a child, and was telling stories of our family’s history and connection to the island of Ireland, “We are Archbishop John Ireland’s people.”

It just happened to be the Archbishop’s last name was the same as the country my people left behind in the mid 1800s. Read and learn more about my dad, and his 1953 trip to Ireland at my 2022 blog.

Project mentors, writing and research

This writing project included three official mentors I contacted before the grant specific to the areas of history and writing. Mentoring was by phone, online video, in person during the writing process.

— The Rev. Gary E. Mills, Th. D., is the Director Swift County Historical Society in Benson, Minnesota, and is a history and genealogy expert. View the Swift County Historical Society Museum website.

— Ms. Tracy Ross, has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She is a published poet and nonfiction author, educator, college professor, and served as the writing expert for this project. View her website.

— Krista Soukup, literary publicist and founder of Blue Cottage Agency, is a marketing expert, specializing in promoting authors and their books. I received artist consultations from Springboard for the Arts with Krista, and her team help carry out social media campaigns to promote my website, and brand as an author. I participated with other authors May 9, 2026, at an authors fair at the Wadena City Library.

Mentoring included topics of marketing, research, history, writing, travel planning, sorting out topics to write about, or save for future writing projects. There is likely a future writing project I would like to pursue based on family research I stumbled on during this grant related to Irish living is Edinburgh, Scotland’s Little Ireland neighborhood.

It’s all too easy to get lost researching, and become overwhelmed. Time is often the best part of the equation for sorting out what’s important or not. It’s best to get lost momentarily in a black hole of facts and original artifacts, and come out the other side with new ideas.

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Kingston Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), April 18, 2026 – A highlight during this grant period was talking about my family roots on Wolfe Island with the Kingston Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) via Zoom. A lot of interest was generated after the talk. I had several people wanting to know about how to find their Canadian roots, specifically on Wolfe Island, and one Canadian looking for roots in Minnesota. I was delighted to know people that follow my website and social media joined me for the talk. This showed the marketing help I received during the grant was really showing great results!

DOWNLOAD – Handout from my Zoom presentation with the Kingston Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), April 18, 2026.

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Irish migration — I have come to understand more and more about the migration of my Irish ancestors from the island of Ireland in Europe to North American, Canada and the United States. I’m the result of my family’s emigration from Ireland, about 1842 for my Walsh family to Kingston and Wolfe Island, Ontario. I’m now living in rural Dublin Township in Swift County, Minnesota where my ancestors might have envisioned their lives, and a location for future generations to thrive.

Tribute to Captain Brian P. Johnson, 1953-2025

Although the grant period is ending, my writing project continues.  Brian P. Johnson, retired Captain of the Wolfe Islander III, of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, wrote about my winter adventure, December 2022, during one of the worst blizzards in about four decades. His story published March 18, 2023, West Central Tribune, Willmar, Minnesota. Read about the Irish Diaspora writing project at the project page. The story he wrote about my first visit to Wolfe Island is certainly a gift I’ll cherish.

May 8, 2025, the day started with excitement of the first American Pope elected, Cardinal Robert Francis Provost of Chicago. It was by the end of the same day, I heard Captain Johnson has passed away in Kingston, Ontario. My heart cried. The Mariner Bard of Wolfe Island was no more.

My first visit to Kingston and Wolfe Island in December 2022, and the first week of January 2023, I was met at the train station in Kingston by the Captain. There were countless trips with the Captain in Kingston and on the island.

His Irish people were on Wolfe Island the same time as my Walsh family, but my family departed in 1877, to join a new colony started by then Bishop John Ireland in De Graff, Minnesota. I really think the Captain wanted to make sure I got to see as much as possible on Wolfe Island, and know I have a deeply linked heritage to Canada. My manuscript will certainly reflect the impact of the Captain.

Captain Brian Johnson, June 11, 1953 – May 8, 2025
“On the evening of May 8, 2025, encircled by the love and tears of his family, our beloved Captain sailed his final ship into the distant sunset. With Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra playing in the background, we held his hands and recounted many of his countless stories as he took his final breaths. Like the journey of life itself, it was as beautiful as it was tragic and we will be forever grateful for having been there with him.”

View full obituary of Captain Brian Johnson online.

“When Jannet told me, ‘the whole house was shaking, even my bed,’ it planted a seed. Then trudging through deep snowdrifts to attend Christmas Eve Mass by candlelight, that was the beginning. She also told me about a lady calling out from a porch, ‘Don’t get lost in the forest!’
Here’s a story all right!”

Brian P. Johnson, Facebook page

What’s next with my Wolfe Island writing project, the manuscript?

The writing for my project is based on facts, research, my personal encounters, and findings during the three visits to Canada and at home in Minnesota, 2022-2024. There’s likely to be another visit in the near future to Wolfe Island and Kingston. I anticipate finishing the manuscript in 2027, and then present to potential publishers.

I found more than anticipated to write about since the start of my current grant in 2024. There’s stories told by Captain Johnson I want to incorporate in my manuscript. The book will contain prose poems I’ve written, and Irish folklore will be woven into the manuscript to help explain my family’s Irish heritage, and the odyssey of migration over two continents.

It’s important to say my family left Ireland in 1842, but the heritage of being Irish did not depart them, even today in 2026. The 35 years of migration, 1842-1877, Ireland, Canada and to rural Swift County, Minnesota, USA, is hard to comprehend with modern travel.

The findings, and details to my manuscript will remain private until published as a book.

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About Wolfe Island – Wolfe Island is in St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, almost four miles from the port of Kingston, accessible by ferry, and the largest island in the archipelago of the Thousand Islands. 

This 48-square-mile island has been home to several European ethnic groups, cheese factories, and dairy farms, along with a history of fur trading. Wolfe Island is the native homeland of the Tyendinaga Mohawk, kawehnóhkwes tsi kawè:note, meaning Long Island Standing. Wolfe Islanders are completely dependent on access to mainland Canada by the Wolfe Island Ferry III to Kingston, soon to be replaced by a zero-emission ferry, Wolfe Island Ferry IV. Locals reference the journey the ferry takes in the St. Lawrence River as a water road, or Highway H₂0.

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Thank You!

There were numerous people, and organizations, in Kingston and Wolfe Island, I received help along the way during my time in Canada. Listed below is a short listing of organizations or businesses I received help from, transportation by ferry, resources, or assistance around Wolfe Island. Special thanks to the Wolfe Island Historical Society staff for all their help locating resources, farms, and finding my forgotten Canadian family history.

• Wolfe Island Historical Society
• Aero Snapper Kingston, Mike Hill
• Fargo’s General Store, Wolfe Island
• Horne’s Ferry, Wolfe Island to Cape Vincent, NY
• Hotel Wolfe Island
• Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Wolfe Island
• St. Mary’s Cathedral, Kingston
• Simceo Ferry, Wolfe Island to Simceo Island
• Wolfe Islander III, Kingston to Wolfe Island
• Wolfe Island Pub and Pizzeria, WIPP

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council for founding my grant, and all current and future professional and artist opportunities as the result of the writing project to Kingston and Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada.

God’s speed to Captain Johnson!

Best wishes,
Jannet L. Walsh

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Genealogy, family history resources

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Artist Grant – Learn more about supporting agencies of this project

The Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC) is a non-profit organization committed to promoting and encouraging the development of the arts in the eighteen counties of southwestern Minnesota by serving as a source of funds and technical services which enable local organizations, educational institutions, and individuals to sponsor and/or create and promote the arts in their communities.

Minnesota Residents – Search for similar arts grants at regional arts councils at the Minnesota State Arts Board website.

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Book — Please find full details, summary, reviewer’s comments on my book page, Higgledy-Piggledy Stones.

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*Jannet L. Walsh of Murdock, Minnesota is a photographer, writer, and Irish Family History Detective. She is the author of a creative nonfiction quest narrative “Higgledy-Piggledy Stones: Family Stories from Ireland and Minnesota,” 2023 by Shanti Arts Publishing. Walsh is recipient of a Southwest Minnesota Arts Council Growth Grant funded by the McKnight Foundation, 2022-2024, and Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, 2024-2026. She is also recipient of a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals Grant, funding from National Endowment for the Arts. You can follow Walsh on Facebook and Twitter, and on her other social media channels, with the hashtag #IrishFamilyHistoryDetective.